Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters The Planet where they shoot 4 MOA rifles

Yep, and during my teens, I didn't bother to check zero if I changed brands, weights, whatevers with my .30-30 ammo, just pace off 50 yards, shoot a beer can, then proclaim the rifle is ready!

I can see how people might have grown up on your planet, and perhaps didn't entirely need a rifle that would shoot better than 4 moa, or expect one. When everything around you is also a 4 moa rifle, then you might not even really know that you could have something better. When zeroing consists of pegging away at a rock or beercan at close range and calling it good if a shot hits, then no doubt a 4 moa rifle's as good as any better one. And if your hunting terrain and techniques match, such as potting deer wandering past or beneath your stand, then it would make no difference to your success.

FWIW there were some aspects of that world in my youth. For example, surplus rifles were cheap and often used for pigshooting. They suited this well, as pigs were available by the truckload, often in thick stuff, and a rifle might need to withstand being dropped in mud and knocked around.

No one considered 4 moa especially accurate though, and the cheap pig rifle was a bit of a special case, with many more accurate rifles being sold here. You'd see the ads for $35 Carcanos and SMLES, but the gunshops would have racks and racks of scoped bolt-actions too: Remingtons, Rugers, Winchesters, Brnos, BSAs, and also a fair number of fancier ones. I remember a time when there were about half a dozen gunshops along George St in Sydney, back in the 70s, and you could have a nice day out walking from one to another and admiring them. If you had the money you'd say "yeah, I'll have that one", and walk out with it. People wanting to hunt deer, or to reach out across teh paddock and headshoot roos, or goats, wanted something a good deal better than 4 moa. Even back then, as I recall, 1 moa was the yardstick for an accurate rifle

FWIW in the late 70s I was using a .22 for rabbits and foxes and the like which would shoot 5 rounds into 1/2" at 50 yards - good enough for me to win the odd prize in field rifle competition. I had a couple of surplus rifles, including a 7 mm Mauser 1895 and a .30/06 Colombian, and then got a job with a gunsmith where I built a sporterised No 4 .303. All of these would easily beat 4 moa by a large margin, the No 4 shooting into about 1 1/2" at 100 yards ( once shot a 5" group at 500 yards with it, but that was a bit of a fluke). I then bought a Rem 700 BDL with a Weaver K6, which put the first two 5 round groups (factory ammo, which came with the rifle) into an inch each at 100, and proceeded to reach out to various game from rabbits to deer with it. .

There was never any of the "shoot at a rock and call it good" either. My family were pretty keen, and so we'd do plenty of practice. We had an informal range on the farm, and as well as that I, like my father, would go to the rifle clubs. My mother's side of the family also liked shooting. They were Swiss, and used to practice with an air pistol in the hallway, and because of them I joined a Swiss rifle club locally, and used to go to the annual Schuetzenfest. I used to do quite a lot of competition, both with them, fullbore (long range), field rifle (hunting rifles), and with cadets. As well as hunting rifles, I had match rifles too, which would shoot a good deal better than 1 moa - I had rifles which would shoot moa-sized groups from prone with a tight sling, unsupported. We'd always check zero - on paper - before hunting too.

This was the world I grew up in. Like "4 moa world" I have no doubt that it wasn't universal, even here.

Thanks Shaman that was interesting! Just thought I'd add a few thoughts. First of all if your rifle is properly zeroed a 4" group is never more than 2" from the point you aim for. 2" high plus 2" low equals 4" correct but each shot is only 2" from the center.

I would also like to add that most hunters who believe they have a 1 moa rifle in reality have closer to a 2 possibly 3 moa rifle in some cases. The reason is because though the rifle might shoot a 1" group fairly often many rifles tend to change point of impact for several reasons. One reason is that some barrels in fact most IME change point of impact slightly at different stages of the barrel fouling. Another reason is because not every load is optimum for temp resistant/ changes in weather. There is also mirage to deal with that some days can move your group an inch right or left. The truth is when you start to add all these variables up a rifle that shoots a 1" group on Saturday probably shoots a 3" group if you shot at the same exact target 3 times a day for 3 months without taking the target down. Personally I consider that to be far more realistic as to how a rifle is going to perform when being used out hunting rather than a one day target session. JMO


Trystan

I grew up reloading and varmint hunting.....and yeah....ive had two plus 4 MOA rifles.

A 94 Bigbore in .307 bought new. And a minty 742 carbine.
742 would cold barrel put the first shot 1" high at 100 honest yards LoL.....but the next few from the now hot bbl into a 1.5" group,.........seven or eight inches lower than the cold bbl first shot

It was repeatable.

Oddly.....the two beater 742 regulars i bought later were 1-2 moa with no heat wander.

I guess theres a pretty good explanation of why they were worn and my carbine was minty LOL.

Shame....that carbine was a cool rifle.

The 94 BB was a lemon. Buddy thought he could figure it out. We made a trade w full disclosure. He said he spent a fair bit of time reloading for it.......to no avail.

He sold/traded the turd.

Ive only had really those two bad rifles.....out of a couple dozen. My next proly be a piece of crap now that Ive jinxed myself.

Current deer battery is a 700 ADL synth .243 thats had minor stock tweaks.....does .75 w cheap WW 80 gr. Is my yote rig too.

760 in 35 rem that last check w 4x did 1.5" at 100. Yup....not sub MOA. Dont care. Its good enough. It cloverleafs at 50 for me so can thread the needle in the thicket.

Then theres my new Steyr Prohunter. Bought some Federal fusion to try in it this weekend. Will also try WW and Remington .....all three in 150s.
Dont think even a 200 lb dressed buck needs a 180 around here. My max shot due to property lines is 250.

After reading this I don’t think you had a clue how well your rifle shot and occasionally you shot good enough to be a 4 MOA shooter. Somewhere between then and after you started reloading, you became a better shot.

You have a very good point there. As I said, the 742 was always a bit of a sprayer. Even with reloads, it never came to heel, but the groups got tighter. The Winchester 670 responded quickly to being fed the right stuff. It went from being a blaster to a real rifle. That was the rifle that really convinced me to start shooting regularly at 100 yards.


How good a shot was I back then? I was quite passable with a 22. I was at least good enough to realize something was wrong with the deer rifles. However, I never much shot them past 50 yards, because I didn't need to. Therein lies the nut of all this: If you hunted deer in our corner of the world, a slug shotgun was your benchmark. A treestand on the edge of cedar thicket was your view of the woods.

I'll tell you another thing that was a huge influence. Back when I started in the early 80's, it was hard to find a range. The closest public range was an hour up the road. I joined a club, but that was still close to an hour from work. I might have an hour or less of shooting before dark. When I'd go on the weekends, the rifle range was crowded. After I got my farm in 2001, I could shoot off the front porch up to 500 yards and not be bothered. However, until I had that opportunity, I really didn't think seriously of firing at more than 50 yards. That's all part of living on this planet where a 4 MOA rifle makes sense.

Was it the rifle? The shooter? The loads? The setup? Yes, one of those will do nicely.

It's funny that this is all coming up, because I inherited my buddy Bob's Ruger Model 44 Carbine back in the spring. I'm getting it ready to hunt it this fall. It's by no means a tack driver, but I put an old Aimpoint (a leftover from another dead friend) on it and I'm going to hunt the cedar thickets. This is going to be a real back-to-my-roots kind of season.

That's right, but "properly zeroed" was another one of the impossible dreams. I'd fire half a box of ammo at a target, and then squint a lot. Is it dead on? Is it 2 inches high? F#@#$ if I know. What I did know was that if I shot another half-a-box, I'd have to go back to Walmart and get another box. It seemed a little useless to ponder when I knew that my next deer might be 10 feet down and 10 feet out when I shot.

When I got my Ruger Hawkeye back in 2014, I took it out and shot a 1" group at 100 yards, the first time. Zowie! That made things SOOOOO much easier.

Why would anyone want a 4" group?


Now it was only 50 yards, but I was standing on my own hind legs.


And embarrassed the kid next to me so bad he packed up his AR and left.

Shame on you DD..... hurt that poor kid's feelings!

Lol, the good old days when people used to just kill game and put them in the freezer seems to be over. Again I really enjoyed your thread!

PS: I would imagine the Ruger Hawkeye killed, gutted, and deboned all critters with a single shot 😁


Trystan

I shoot 4 moa............from the hip. Yeah buddy..

Interesting conversation I had about 20 years ago with a friend who had just come back from Raton where both he and his daughter won big in the Silhouette championships.
I asked him exactly what the accuracy parameter would be for a competitive rifle there.
He said flat out" if you have a rifle that will hold 1.5 MOA you have the potential to win all the marbles at Raton"!
"WAITAMINIT??!! 1.5 MOA? Really?"
"Yup, the biggest variable is the nut behind the bolt"
When you figure that 1.5MOA circle will fit into the center of the various silhouettes it makes sense.
As far as a 4 MOA rifle goes, 8" is generally considered lethal vital area on an Alberta white tail, so that also makes sense.
Cat

I had 3 main influences when I got into deer hunting, Jerry, Bob, and John. They acted the roll of crazy uncle in my late adolescence and early adulthood. A young man needs a crazy uncle in his life-- someone to talk to when bringing such things to your father would not be wise. Dad had been a champion trapshooter, but his last experience with a rifle was in the Battle of Fort Sill in late 1944. He said the armadillos sounded just like Japanese.

Bob had been a gun editor for a magazine. He was friends with Bill Ruger and Elmer Keith
Jerry had been an armorer in the Marines. He had owned a gun store.
John had been in The Bulge.

Jerry and Bob were the guys who goaded me into shooting. John found me places to hunt and camp. Most of what I learned about hunting and shooting in the first decade came from them. Bob was mostly a shotgun and pistol guy. Jerry was into full-auto and military stuff. John was mostly into camping

The main things I learned from them were:

30-06-- once and forever.
If you can keep it on a pie plate, you're good to kill deer
Find ammo your gun likes and stockpile it
Shoot, and keep shooting until you're sure it won't shoot back.
Find a campsite nearest the bathroom

The latter two was John's addition. John's experience north of the Ardenne colored a lot of his advice-- that and his weak bladder.

The rest? I was pretty much on my own, and frankly, I didn't much mind the first 20 years. Jerry and John were both dead when I bought my first rifle that wasn't a 22 or a 30-06. It was a Ruger Mini 14, and the main reason I bought it was that my contacts through John had offered me some opportunities to hunt groundhogs, and the Mini 14 seemed like an ideal middle-ground between 22 long rifle and the 30-06 shooting Accelerators. It was also good enough for groundhogs. It was more accurate than the Rem 742, so for a time, I actually thought about using it as a deer rifle.

That's pretty much where I was when I came to the 24hourcampfire.com. By then, Bob's knees had given out, and he was no longer able to hunt. You all have become my replacement crazy uncles.

You seem to have some tender feelers Jerryann....LMAO

Finally a thread about my old Mini-14 ranch rifle... the only rifle I couldn’t get to shoot under 2 MOA

I've killed quite a few big game animals with rifles that wouldn't average any better than four inches at 100 yards--if you count shotguns with rifled barrels for shooting slugs as rifles. (Dunno why not....) They work fine as long as the range isn't beyond minute-of-deer.

One, however, was a rifle used on an"industry" deer and pig hunt in Texas. Actually, the rifle shot fine, as it was a Remington 700 in 7mm SAUM--which I'd already purchased at the writers' discount, after testing it thoroughly with both factory and handloaded ammo. But the scope chose the Texas hunt to go screwy, which I discovered when range-checking the zero down there. The scope didn't totally fail, as quite a few others have on my rifles, but groups with factory ammo that normally shot into an inch or a little less were around 3-4 inches. So I hunted with it as if it were an open-sighted lever-action, and not only killed deer but one feral pig, plus a javelina, none of which were over 100 yards away.

I killed alot of deer with smoothbore slug guns that wouldn't do better than 5-6 MOA back in the day. They did fine at usual woods ranges. Can't recall that I ever owned a rifle that shot as bad as 4 MOA. That includes 3 mini 14's, a mini 30, several winchester 94's and Marlin 336's, a couple 1894 Marlins, a Rossi 92 and an SMLE. All shot better than 4 MOA. Most considerably so. I was smart enough and informed enough to steer clear of Remington autoloaders even when first starting out.

Had a Browning reproduction of the Model 71 Winchester that grouped three shots into 2-4 inches at 100 yards, depending on the load, and since 5-shot groups average about 1-1/2 times the diameter of 3-shot groups (even in benchrest rifles), that meant it was really a 3-6 inch rifle, even with the aperture sight. Townsend Whelen also described the Winchester 71 .348 a a 4-inch rifle, and that's about how Ken Waters 71 shot before he had it worked over by a well-known (back then) gunsmith, who also built benchrest rifles.

Eventually I did some stress-relieving on the forend stuff, and got my 71 to shoot 3-shot groups of around 2 inches with most loads, and around an inch with some. But from the factory it was about a 4-inch rifle, as many Winchester 71's also were.

My present line-up of lever rifles will all group three shots under 2" at 100 yards, even with open sights, and often do much better. The very first group I shot at 100 with my Winchester 1886 in .33 WCF measured 1.08 inches, but it has a Marble's tang sight.

Interesting post, and I`m here to tell you 4MOA rifles, and shooters, are NOT dead! I know many guys that still shoot them, not with irons either, but with scopes. Scopes are supposed to make a difference...but if the target is only 60 yrds away, don`t matter much. It does help to see horns early or late, in the dark swamp tho. I see guys and their targets at a local range in fall, normally a week or so before season, shooting one, maybe two shots at 100. If a bullet falls within 4 inches of aim, with the scope, the gun is really shooting good enough to kill a deer..
Many years ago, before I knew better, I`d thought the same thing. After all, it is a hundred yards.